Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act, quality, or power of withstanding hardship or stress.
  • noun The state or fact of persevering.
  • noun Continuing existence; duration.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Continuance; duration.
  • noun Continuance in bearing or suffering; the fact or state of enduring stress, hardship, pain, or the like; a holding out under adverse force or influence of any kind: as, the endurance of iron or timber under great strain; a person's endurance of severe affliction.
  • noun Ability to endure; power of bearing or suffering without giving way; capacity for continuance under stress, hardship, or infliction; as, to test the endurance of a brand of steel; that is beyond endurance, or surpasses endurance.
  • noun Delay; procrastination.
  • noun [The meaning of the word in the above extract has been disputed, some thinking it equivalent to durance, confinement; others, to suffering.] Synonyms and Fortitude, etc. (see patience); permanence, persistence, continuance, suffering, sufferance, tolerance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A state or quality of lasting or duration; lastingness; continuance.
  • noun The act of bearing or suffering; a continuing under pain or distress without resistance, or without being overcome; sufferance; patience.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The measure of a person's stamina or persistence.
  • noun Ability to endure hardship.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a state of surviving; remaining alive
  • noun the power to withstand hardship or stress

Etymologies

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  • 1494 FABYAN V.cxxix. 111 Some accompt ye enduraunce therof to the laste yere of Burdredus. 1692 LADY RUSSELL Lett. II. cxxxvii. 112 The joys of eternal endurance.

    April 20, 2008